I was talking with a client today and he was telling me how he is super eager to do as much as he can to grow his business. He wants to do everything. Social media, content marketing, email marketing, everything he needs to be doing to grow his business, he’s all for it.

Very exciting, right!?

But, the only problem is, he doesn’t know where to start!

And I remember thinking, this isn’t the first time that I’ve had this conversation with someone. They want to do social media, content marketing, digital marketing, and so on, but they have no idea where to begin.

Have you ever felt that way? For example:

• Do you know the value of social media marketing but you’re not sure how to do it?
• Have you heard how creating content for your business can give you an advantage over your competitors, but you have no idea what content to create?
• Do you know that generating leads and building trust on social media is possible but you’re not sure how?
• Do you sometimes feel bombarded with the amount of things you need to do in digital marketing for your business?

In this article, I’m going to share with you a few of the best ways to get started with social media and digital marketing.

START SMALL AND WORK YOUR WAY UP

Getting started is always the hardest part when it comes to doing almost anything and the same is true with social media and digital marketing. Once you create digital marketing habits (create content, generate leads, follow up via email, etc) and do these things on a regular basis, then things get easier.

Don’t try to do too much in the beginning and then, as a result, give up!

It’s better to start slow, at a pace you can realistically stick to, and then do more in the future once you’ve created habits and built a strong foundation.

Yes, in the beginning, there’s a lot of hard work, but the rewards are definitely worth it.

EDUCATE YOURSELF AS TO HOW SOCIAL MEDIA REALLY WORKS

You don’t have to learn every intricate detail about digital marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and then do it all yourself. You can hire people or a social media agency (such as us!) to execute the strategies and tactics. But you do need to learn the basics.

What are the basics?

The basics are learning the principles to generate more leads and convert leads into new customers by using social media, content marketing and digital marketing.

To help you out, I’ve created a fast-track course to learning the basics called “A beginners course to social media and content marketing.” You can sign up for free and start learning the basics straight away!

WHY IS LEARNING THE BASICS IMPORTANT?

It’s important you understand the bigger picture of how everything from your website, to your social media channels to your email marketing, works together to ultimately bring you more customers.

A few people that I’ve spoken to in the past, assume that all you need to do to be successful on social media, is to post social media updates. They think that’s all you need to do to get results (e.g. more customers). But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a lot more you need to be doing with social media to bring in results.

Posting social media updates is a great way to build trust with those you’re already connected to, but it doesn’t really help you reach out to new people that haven’t yet heard about you. It doesn’t really help you find your ideal customers online. It doesn’t help you generate more leads and allow you to scale up your digital marketing campaigns.

Yes, it’s important, but there’s a lot more you need to be doing.

HOW CAN YOU LEARN ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Read social media blogs, watch content marketing videos, listen to marketing podcasts and sign up to free (or paid) courses.

We have loads of free resources at Skyline Social. If you’re looking for something we haven’t answered, or you can’t find the answer to, let us know and I will personally answer it for you (either through a video or blog post).

Finally, don’t educate yourself only once. Continue to educate yourself. Keep learning, because this stuff is always changing. There’s always something new happening and you want to make sure you don’t miss out on any new business opportunities.

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

Avoid generic and boring business networking events. A lot of generic networking events are very hit and miss when it comes to winning new business and most of the people who go to these events are more “traditional” types of business owners — people who are not using social media or digital marketing.

Instead, surround yourself with like-minded people. The kind of people that believe, understand and breathe all things digital marketing. The kind of people that were maybe at some point, in the same boat as you, and are now crushing it online.

You’ve probably heard the saying: you end up being the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with? That’s so true!

Who you associate with (either online or face to face) will influence your actions. So associating with the right people will make sure you and your business are moving in the right direction.

HOW CAN YOU ASSOCIATE WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE?

Thanks to the internet — it’s easy!

There are Facebook groups, Slack groups and lots of communities where you can find people related to your industry and experts in social media, content marketing, etc.

Two awesome communities that I’m a member of and I highly recommend you check out, are the Content Marketing Academy and Atomic by Andrew and Pete.

You will see that people in these communities are creating awesome content, they’re getting out there on social media, they’re generating leads and they’re winning more customers

In these communities you can share your content, get feedback, ask for help, collaborate with other members, and more!

PAY FOR COACHING, TRAINING OR CONSULTANCY

Hiring a coach or paying for one-to-one social media training is useful to get you from A to B. If you are really serious about getting results, then paying for a coach or consultant, will help you get there much faster.

Be sure to hire someone with the necessary skills and someone who understands your business, your goals, the challenges you currently face and what you need to do to overcome them.

A coach or a consultant is great because they’ve probably been through many situations that you’re currently going through, either with themselves or with their clients, and they can guide you through these obstacles.

Paying them for an hour or two of their time either as a one-off or on a monthly basis can go a long way in helping you grow your business.

WHAT’S NEXT AFTER GETTING STARTED?

Delegate, delegate, delegate!

Once you know the basics and you start to apply what you learn, you will find that it takes a lot of time to do everything yourself.

As a business owner, you’re time is one of your most valuable assets. So you should start delegating as much as you can as soon as you can.

WHAT KIND OF MARKETING TASKS CAN YOU DELEGATE?

I believe that overall, you as the leader in your business, should be in charge of the strategy and vision for your company.

Everything else (the actual day-to-day tactical work) can and should be delegated either to someone in-house or outsourced (or even a bit of both).

How much you can actually delegate will largely depend on your budget.

My recommendation is to start delegating or outsourcing as much as you can afford. Everything else, do it yourself for the time-being. The ultimate goal is for you, as the business owner, to be focusing only on higher-level business activities and not the day-to-day tactical work.

Even if you do outsource your social media, content marketing and digital marketing, make sure you’re still involved. As a minimum you should check-in each month to see how your marketing is progressing.

KEEP LEARNING ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL MARKETING

Times in the modern-day business world can change fast, so never stop learning. Be brave, be bold and try new things. Think ahead and continually ask yourself, “what could be the next best thing for marketing my business?”.

By doing so, you’ll make sure your business not only survives, but thrives.

NEED MORE HELP STARTING OUT?

Do you feel like you understand the basics of how social media can help you grow your business?

Do you want an expert to execute social media, content marketing and digital marketing strategies and tactics in your business?

Do you want a specialist to take care of everything (or as much as possible) for you?

We can help you with all of this and more. To get started, book a 45-minute meeting with me and let’s have a chat to see how we can help.

How to get started with marketing your business on social media was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You probably already know that a lot of people, including your potential customers, are on social media.

But have you ever asked yourself:

“How does social media actually help me grow my business?”

“How does social media help my business win more customers?”

“How does social media help me increase my sales?”

In this article, I’ll explain the process you need to take to ensure your social media doesn’t only increase your “likes”, “followers”, etc — but actually grows your business.

The biggest mistake businesses make with social media

The number one mistake I see businesses making with social media is simply not having a plan to convert social media leads into sales (more on how to do that later in this article).

The second biggest mistake I see is people not being patient and understanding that it takes time to nurture leads from social media into sales.

You can’t spend a small amount on Facebook ads, follow a few people on Twitter, and expect instant sales.

However, if done correctly, you can create a system for selling on social media that works incredibly well and brings you predictable and scalable results.

You just need to know how.

Create a social media system to grow your business

It all starts with creating what we call a “Social Media Selling Machine”.

In this machine, you need to:

1. Create (and stick to) a plan
2. Have at least one system to generate leads
3. Have at least one system to convert those leads into sales

As you can see, it’s all about creating systems for your social media marketing. Systems that produce predictable results, on a consistent basis.

Then, you need to take ACTION to implement those systems in your business each month.

Create (and stick to) a social media plan

Creating a plan is the first and most important step in growing your business through social media and in creating a “Social Media Selling Machine”.

Most of our clients hire us to create a 12-month social media plan for them. Why?

1. It’s easier for you to see the bigger picture and follow through with action
2. You can clearly identify what you need to do each month to grow your business
3. You can ensure you have systems each day, week and month that help you generate leads and convert leads into sales

If you’d like to learn how to create a social media plan for yourself, be sure to read my article on “The ultimate guide to creating a social media strategy for your business that works”

Create a system to generate leads

Once you have a plan for the next 12 months, you need to implement systems that continually generate new leads for your business.

What are “leads”?

At Skyline Social, we count a lead as a potential customer who gives you their contact information.

This is usually in the form of a name and email address that you then add to your email database.

How can you generate leads?

One of the most effective ways to generate leads is to give something of value (a free guide, video, article, course, etc) in return for a potential customer’s name and email address.

If you have an interesting offer you can give to potential customers for free you can easily generate leads on most social media channels, from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and LinkedIn.

See also: The best way to generate leads for your business on Twitter

Generating leads is probably my favourite part of social media. It’s so exciting to see fresh prospects signing up to your email database each day!

If right now you’re not generating any leads, start small and work your way up. A few leads a month to start with is great.

Once you find an offer that works you can always scale up your lead generation machine (by adding more social media channels, investing more money in paid ads, or spending more time engaging with prospects).

But remember: generating leads does not equal sales. That’s why the next step is crucial!

Create a system to convert leads into sales

Most people try to jump straight to the sale before generating leads on social media. It usually doesn’t work.

For example, have you ever accepted a connection on LinkedIn, and then minutes later received a sales pitch from that person selling their services to you?

Most people have and it’s annoying and intrusive, and for that reason, not very effective.

People buy from people they know, like and trust.

If you reach out to someone, who hasn’t asked or shown any interest in what you do, then jump straight to a sales pitch — ask yourself: do they know you? Do they like you? And most importantly, do they trust you?

If the answer is no, to any of those questions, then now wouldn’t be the best time to sell to them.

You need to build up trust first.

So you may be thinking:

1. How do I get my prospects to know me?
2. How do I get my prospects to like me?
3. How do I get my prospects to trust me?

We’ve found the following three ways to be the most effective.

Method 1: Post daily social media updates

Posting social media updates on your social media channels each day is essential to building trust, with not just your leads on social media, but leads that find you on Google, word of mouth or anywhere else!

Imagine a potential customer visits your website, checks out your social media channels and they see that it hasn’t been updated in years?

Forgotten, outdated, inept. Not a great impression.

Alternatively, imagine they go to your social media channels, and they see that you’re active and posting each day.

On top of that, imagine they see you actually posting content and social media updates that are interesting to them!

What kind of an impression do you think that would make on your potential customers (and even your existing ones)?

It will make you look like an expert and authority in your field. It will build trust.

So, posting regular social media updates that are relevant to your potential customers, is an excellent way to build trust.

Method 2: Create unique content

Creating your own content, in the form of articles and videos, is an excellent way for people to get to know you, like you and trust you.

There are so many benefits to creating unique content for your business that this is definitely one method you do NOT want to skip.

Creating content can help your business:

• Generate more leads (the content you can create can be re-purposed as a lead-generation offer)
• Rank higher on Google (studies have found a correlation between high-quality content and higher appearances on search engines, such as Google)
• Build trust and credibility (you can show people first-hand that you are an expert in your industry)
• Builds likability (people can get a sense for who you are and what your business is about by reading your content and watching your videos)
• Nurtures your leads (creating content allows you to nurture your prospects by sharing the content on social media and via email)
• Increases conversions (if you create content about your pricing, your services and other questions people have about your business, it can increase the chances they buy)

Creating content is a must-have for any effective social media marketing strategy.

METHOD 3: Follow up with leads

Finally, you can nurture your leads and build trust by following up with them on a regular basis through email marketing.

You can do this using free tools such as MailChimp or paid tools such as ConvertKit (which is our favourite).

What should you email your leads?

Well, remember your primary goal is to build trust and likeability.

One of the best things you can email your leads is the unique content you create for your business.

Guides, videos, blog posts, etc — that provide value to your potential customers — are all excellent ways to nurture and build trust with your potential customers.

How can you get started?

If you’ve never run an email campaign for your business, again, we recommend you start small and keep things simple — then work your way up from there.

For example, you could start by creating an email database for your leads (both new and old ones in the past) and follow up with them with an email once a month with your latest (or best) piece of content.

That’s a brilliant first step to nurturing your leads to the point that they trust you so that when there’s a need for what you do, they know to hire you.

Create the systems first and then improve them

Once you’ve created the systems (usually that’s the hardest part) the next step is to look at the results you’re getting and see how you can improve them.

Some things to ask yourself are:

• By changing my offer or my target audience, could I generate even more leads?
• Could I create automatic email sequences for prospects that become leads?
• What other content could I create, that I’m not creating right now, would help convert leads into sales?
• What are some of the most common questions potential customers ask my business? Have I ever addressed those on my website?
• How many people are opening and clicking on my emails? What can I do to improve this?

It’s important you track your results and then continually see how you can improve them.

If you need help with creating a “social media selling machine” system for your own business, please book a free consultation. I would be happy to have a chat and see how we can help you get started.

How social media can help you grow your business was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What is Facebook Lead Ads?

Facebook Lead Ads allows you to generate leads directly from your potential customers from directly within the Facebook and Instagram platform — without the need for a landing page.

Why use Facebook Lead Ads?

• It’s easy to use (see below to learn how)
• It’s easy to convert (with the right message & targeting)
• It’s easy to test what lead gen offer works and what doesn’t

How Facebook Lead Ads works

Now that you know what it is and why you should try it out, here’s how to use it.

Before you start: Facebook require you to have a “Privacy Policy” somewhere on your website. If you don’t have one, you can easily create one for free in under 10 minutes by using this website.

Step 1: In your Facebook Adverts Manager click on “Create Advert”

Step 2: For your “marketing objective” choose “Lead Generation”, in the “Consideration” section, as seen in the screenshot below.

Step 3: Choose a Campaign Name. It doesn’t matter too much what name you use as long as it allows you to easily remember what the campaign is for.

For example, if I created a lead generation offer where I give away a free social media strategy guide I would call it “Lead Gen — Social Media Strategy Guide” or something along those lines.

Step 4: Choose your Facebook Page and if this is the first time using this objective you will also be asked to accept Facebook’s terms and conditions.

Step 5: Choose the right audience

It’s very important you know your audience well. Who are your potential customers (their age, location, gender, etc) and most importantly what are they interested in?

When choosing your target audience it’s very important you fill out the “Detailed targeting” section. If you click on the browse button you will get a list of categories for you to target people in.

Or you can use the search box to type in something related to who you want to target. For example, if I wanted to target small business owners, I could search for the job title “Managing director” or I could search for “Small Business Owner”.

Facebook have a lot of data so be sure to play around with what kind of results you can get.

Step 6: Choose your placements

For lead generation campaigns, I normally select “Automatic placements”.

This means your lead generation advert will be visible everywhere (Facebook, Instagram, Facebook partners, etc).

Facebook’s algorithm is very smart and will automatically optimize your campaign to show your advert on the places it is more likely to generate more leads.

In our testing we have found that we almost always get better results with “automatic placements”

Like all things in marketing, it’s good to test it for yourself, but if you’re just starting out you can safely bet that “Automatic placements” will deliver results for you.

Step 7: Choose your budget

This is entirely up to you and you can spend as much or as little as you like. Obviously, the more you spend, the more people you can reach and the more leads you can win.

My recommendation is, if you’re getting started, begin with a smaller budget (maybe £5 to £20 per day) and then scale up as and when you see results.

When you select a daily budget you can turn it off at any time.

Step 8: Let Facebook decide your “bid amount”

Facebook does a pretty good job of getting you the most results for the best price. Right now at this stage I’d leave all the advance settings as they are. You can always change or do split tests in the future; but again, our testing has found it’s best to leave it as is.

Click “Continue” to move on to your advert.

Step 9: Choose an awesome offer

I could probably write a book (and many others have) on creating an effective Facebook advert, but for now, let’s keep things simple.

The main thing to keep in mind is: your offer needs to be relevant and highly valuable to your target audience.

If you’re targeting a cold target audience, then you will need offer something of immense value. A free piece of valuable content, in return for your potential customers email address, normally works well.

In our example, we will use a “Free social media strategy” guide as an example.

It’s also a good idea to test a few different variables in your advert. Different text, different headings, etc.

You’d be surprised how one simple change in the text or the image can have a big impact on the amount of leads you generate.

In this example, by uploading 3 different images, I will test what one performs better.

It’s important when testing you only change one variable at a time.

Find the winner, then test the winning advert against another variable.

What if you’re not sure what to offer?

This is the beauty of using this type of campaign on Facebook. If you don’t yet have a peice of content ready, you can change the wording in the advert to say:

“We are thinking of creating [name of your content idea]. If you’re interested in a free copy of the [article/video/guide/etc] click “sign up”.

Or

“We are currently working on [name of your content idea]. Get early access to this [article/video/guide/etc] by clicking on ‘Sign up’.”

Using this method you can test if an offer will generate leads or not before you even create the content.

Very cool!

Step 10: Finally you need to create your form

Click on “New Form”

You can have a welcome screen if you want, but I normally turn this off, to reduce the amount of steps necessary for someone to become a lead.

You will also need to enter what questions you want the prospect to answer on the form, provide a link to the privacy policy on your website and take them to a thank you page to learn more after they become a lead.

Here’s an example of our form:

Remember, you can have more then two form fields (name and email) but the more fields you have the more less leads you will get.

On the other hand, creating more forms fields, could also be a good way to pre-qualify potential customers. We’ve tested this with a few clients and even though you might generate less leads, the quality of the leads that come from more fields, are usually higher.

Top tip: if you are going to ask for your potential customers to fill in more fields then don’t just add extra fields for the sake of it. It’s important to only get them to fill in additional info, if it’s absolutely necessary.

For example, one of the questions I could add to pre-qualify customers, is “How do you plan to use social media in your business?”

Anyone that selects the outsourcing options, I know will most likely be a hot lead, since that’s exactly what we do (done-for-you social media services).

Top tip: before you save your form, don’t forget to edit the name at the top of the page.

Finally, click on “Place Order” and you’re done!

Tracking your results

On the final screen you will have the option of either downloading your leads manually or integrating it into your CRM/Email software (you will need to pay for Zapier to do this).

If you’re just starting out and you simply want to test and see if your offer works, you can download the leads manually. But at some point in the near future, you definitely need to automate the process, by integrating it with your CRM, to save time.

How to use Facebook Lead Ads was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With over 500 million members now on LinkedIn, we are living in an age where connecting with potential clients couldn’t be easier, or more immediate.

An excellent chance for ‘social selling’, a well-thought out LinkedIn presence can quickly grow your sales figures. However, rather than pushing for the hard sell, optimizing your LinkedIn profile can instead give sellers the ability to nurture their clients, establishing a relationship of trust and credibility before any actual business takes place.

Wait, what’s nurturing? If you’re unsure, don’t read another word without checking out our blog “From shares to shakes: closing leads through social media and the power of nurturing“.

While social selling and nurturing may take time and energy, research from LinkedIn itself has found that;

– Social selling leaders create 45% more opportunities for themselves
– Social selling leaders are 51% more likely to reach their quota
– 78% of social sellers outsell peers who aren’t on social media.

Research also shows that a whopping 80% of all social media business to business leads are from LinkedIn.

So, with the right investment of time, LinkedIn can transform your business’ sales figures considerably. For maximum optimisation of your profile, follow our top tips.

Tip #1: First impressions count: don’t waffle!

Make sure that when potential clients view your profile, they are impressed. A good rule is to constantly ask yourself the question, “Would my target buyer care about this?”. If the answer is no, then ditch it.

A current, high-resolution picture is imperative, as is a concise headline to your profile. Your headline should be short and sweet, and answer the following two questions: ‘Who do you help, and how do you help them?’. This helps in sending a clear message as to why buyers should be interested in you.

A summary should then explain your headline further, including keywords that buyers are likely to search for, and ending with a call-to-action statement. Add some visual content to the summary to capture your audience’s attention, and make your experience section easy to scan through by bullet pointing your main roles and most developed skills.

Tip #2: Aim for a “LinkedIn All-Star” profile

Make the most of every feature LinkedIn has to offer. Once you do this, you’ll reach “All-Star” status which means your profile is as optimized as possible.

You can see if you have a LinkedIn “All-star” profile by going to your profile page. If you don’t yet have an “All-Star” profile, LinkedIn will tell you what you need to do to get there.

Tip #3: Connect wisely

By this, I mean think about how you approach potential buyers. While Twitter is more of a free-for-all, it is unwise to connect with people you haven’t met on LinkedIn without a personal message. Personalise your invitation to connect by writing a few sentences about who you are, when you met, and why connecting on social media would be beneficial to you both.

Also, don’t be afraid to connect with well-respected business people who are not your potential clients. Why? Because chances are they are connected to people who are and connecting gives you a chance to share your content with them too.

Top tip: Be sure to connect to all your leads and people that you meet either online or offline. For example, at Skyline Social, we connect to some of those who engage with us on Twitter and we connect to leads we speak to via email as a way to further build a relationship with them.

Tip #4: Stay in touch with potential customers (and existing ones!)

Once you have connected with potential customers online, don’t forget about them!

A like here and a comment there builds a positive impression of you in the customer’s mind. Don’t overdo it, however, you don’t want to come across as obsessive or creepy. Make each interaction thoughtful and original, giving genuine responses to articles or endorsing skills that you have actually experienced.

Tip #5: Share your content

By posting social media updates and your own articles on LinkedIn’s blogging platform you can stay at the top of your potential customer’s mind.

It’s important to use these methods of getting your content in front of your LinkedIn connections to provide value and help them; not to sell to them.

Top tip: we’ve found you can get great results on LinkedIn by connecting to potential clients, posting social media updates and then sharing your own native LinkedIn articles. We’ve had people message us on LinkedIn, asking if we can help them in their business, simply from posting content on the platform.

Tip #6: Ask for recommendations

A great way to build social standing is to ask your clients to leave you a recommendation on LinkedIn. Very simple, yet incredibly powerful, especially since chances are high your potential clients will be looking you up on LinkedIn.

Tip #7: Invest and take action

Your biggest investment in LinkedIn will probably be your time. If you don’t have the time to invest in optimizing your account — outsource or delegate it.

A virtual assistant, an in-house marketing manager or a social media agency can go a long way to helping you generate more business through LinkedIn if you need a helping hand.

Whatever happens, make sure you stay involved though. It’s your profile, so it needs to have your personality and input (i.e. what content you want to share, who you want to connect to, etc).

More LinkedIn resources

Amazon has a great selection of LinkedIn business books you can buy online.

Overall, LinkedIn can be a fantastic social media channel to connect with your contacts, find new leads and convert those leads into sales.

In a future article, I’ll explain how you can use LinkedIn paid advertising to generate new leads for your business.

7 LinkedIn tips to build your brand on social media was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the United Airlines incident that has taken social media, and consequently the world, by storm.

It all started when a United Airlines passenger was pulled out of his seat and dragged across the floor of the plane by Chicago Aviation Security Officers so that last-minute United Airline crew members could board.

The incident was of course recorded on smartphones, uploaded on various social media channels, and it’s no surprise that, very soon, it went “viral”.

Okay, so United Airlines got off to a pretty bad start, but when CEO Oscar Munoz said in a statement “I apologize for having to re-accommodate those customers” on Twitter, things got even worse.

United CEO response to United Express Flight 3411. pic.twitter.com/rF5gNIvVd0

As a result, people reacted very negatively on social media, United Airlines lost millions on the stock market and people began to use the hashtag #BoycottUnited.

Key Lesson: When you mess up — own it

If something happens and your company is clearly at fault, do not be defensive. Instead, show empathy, show that you care, show that you want to fix the problem and genuinely apologize.

Sometimes that’s all people want.

They want to know that you really do care.

Later, the CEO finally did issue a more genuine apology saying:

“Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.”

But the damage from his first statement had already been done.

A reminder of the age we live in

This is a thrilling reminder, to all of us, of the times we are living in. Armed with only our smartphones and a few social media accounts, we can create and spread stories at an unprecedented rate.

As a business, with social media, you have the unique opportunity to tell your story to the world.

You can spread your ideas, connect with your ideal customers and, for good or for worse, show people what your business is really like.

One important lesson United Airlines’ social media nightmare can teach businesses was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ahh “Content Marketing”.

I remember a few years ago I would mention this to people who would look at me back with a blank expressions on their face.

“Content… what?”

Well, a few years on, and today more people than ever, are starting to embrace the power and potential that creating educational content for your business can have.

And by now I’m sure you will have heard the buzz surrounding content marketing. You may have a vague idea about its value and impact to business success; but what exactly is it?

This article will help clarify what content marketing is and some of the ways you can do it.

Defining Content Marketing for your business

A simple Google search describes content marketing as:

“a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services”

The key is that content marketing doesn’t explicitly promote a brand, but is intended to stimulate interest.

It is a form of marketing that indirectly promotes your brand or product. By sharing content, brands can build the framework in which they want to be seen. It’s context to who you are and what you value. What makes content marketing different to other marketing? It’s content that people want to read. It’s appreciated by the reader, it’s relevant and consistent. It’s helpful. It’s valuable.

The types of Content you can create for your business

This content can take a seemingly endless list of forms. It can be blogs, images, videos, podcasts, lists, infographics, opinion posts, how-to’s, reviews, podcasts, interviews, case studies… You get the idea.

Basically: anything that people can consume (read, listen, watch, etc) and get value from can be content you can create for your business.

This post will zoom in on a few of these examples of content, and share what it is about them that makes them so valuable.

Blogs

Arguably the most popular form of content marketing, blogging is an immensely valuable tool. Rather than making an aggressive sales pitch, blogs begin a more open conversation. By posting regularly, brands can build their online personality. More importantly, it’s a personality people can relate to.

For example, if you’re wondering what type of personality Skyline Social has, looking at our blogs will show you that it’s all about helping businesses grow by using social media and content marketing.

Videos

Video content is easy to consume, simple to share, and created to be enjoyed. Video is perhaps the most engaging form of content available. It can ignite emotions and explain key concepts or ideas in a simple and digestible way. Build confidence in your brand, product or service, by producing or sharing entertaining content that adds to your story.

Case Studies

Case studies are immensely valuable for sharing the success of your business. They begin with an easily imaginable and relatable problem, and show the steps taken to develop and make that problem disappear.

They give an insight into the way that you work, deal with challenges, and ultimately improve a situation from its original state. Case studies present your brand as one that can take control, a figure with the answers, attributing a sense of pragmatism to your personality.

Best of all? They’re honest. A verifiable proof of what you and your business, brand or product can do to really benefit the situation of another.

Images

The content marketing institute found that whatever your industry, content with images receive 94% more engagement than those without. This makes it a strong contender for the most important social media tactic available! Utilise your Instagram, and put some eye-catching imagery on your articles to make your content shine.

Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of information or data. With so many facts, stats, and tidbits of information circulating the world-wide web, infographics are great for sending messages to your customers in an accessible way. Presented with bold colours and unusual fonts, infographics act in much the same way as images. They grab the attention of your audience in a way they can enjoy and appreciate.

Reviews

Either by writing your own, or sharing the work of others, reviews are a great way of expressing opinion. They can highlight your values and give real life examples of what can be achieved. Evaluate something from your field; be it a recent TEDtalk, business articles, or networking events, and both praise what you like and critique what you don’t. When a consumer reads your content, and agrees with what you’re sharing, a relationship built on trust and agreement is instantly formed. Remember though, when consumers can see what you value in the work of others, they will expect the same standard in your own!

Why should you care about content marketing?

It builds trust.

Trust is one of the most important parts of growing your business and it applies to every business.

“People do business with people they know, like and trust.” — Timeless business saying

Content marketing is essential to the success of your business because it build trust with your potential customers and existing customers.

Potential leads are nurtured through content marketing, through reaffirmation of who you are and what you stand for and eventually, once you’ve built enough trust, those leads are turned into sales.

So to reiterate, content marketing is not about plugging your service or products. It is about helping people, providing value to them and building trust.

With good content marketing that is both regular and relevant, your customers will be primed with a positive opinion of you and your brand, often ready to buy before they even approach you.

What is content marketing, anyway? was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you are a business that operates online in 2017, then you will have no doubt been told how important content marketing can be as a tool for your business. The people telling you this might not have explained why, but the seed will certainly have been sown.

Content marketing sounds great, but how do you get involved, and what exactly are the benefits?

The true value of content marketing can only truly be felt over the long-term. To experience the full power of content marketing you need patience, commitment, and dedication. Believe me though; it is worth it. A leaflet drop is all well and good if you want an immediate response, and a website can get you good results if the right people visit.

Ultimately, though, whatever you do in terms of marketing, your content, and the message you relay through it, will be at its core.

What is content marketing?

It makes sense to start with an explanation of exactly what content marketing is. Wikipedia describes it as:

“a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs and social media posts).”

Simple so far. It goes on to say that this content:

“does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”

Does not explicitly promote. This is very important.

Content marketing can never be seen, or used, as a traditional sales technique.

Rather than selling, your aim is always to educate and provide value to your potential customers. As you are educating them, you highlight your expertise in the process and as a result, you build more trust with your prospects, so that eventually they will buy from you when the time is right for them

Why Content Marketing?

Okay, so we understand what content marketing is, but why bother using it? If it isn’t directly selling your product or service, then surely it isn’t as valuable as the type of marketing that tells the reader to buy, right?

Wrong.

We live in a world where people are tired of being sold to. Brand loyalty is waning because consumers just don’t feel valued. If you are treated like just a number by an organisation, then you will begin to see them in the same way.

Just think of it in terms of a teacher who is being interviewed for a role in a school. If you are the head teacher, do you choose the candidate who tells you how good they are and demands that you hire them, or do you instead feel more comfortable with the candidate who shows you how valuable they would be by outlining how their experiences have helped them to become a top teacher? In almost every scenario (except in politics it seems) you choose the most qualified person, the one who can demonstrate their value, rather than just tell you about it.

What Are the Long-Term Benefits?

The thing with content marketing, as we’ve already touched on, is that it is a long-term strategy. For that reason, it makes sense to start immediately. Much like visiting the dentist, the longer you put it off, the more difficult it gets to just take a deep breath and do it. But what are the long-term benefits? We’ve picked out a few we think are worth thinking about:

1. Content attracts traffic. By consistently keeping on top of trends, you can create relevant content that piques the interest of potential customers. If they see something they like, they will click through to your site. Once there, you will want to give them the best opportunity to read other posts you have written by creating links. The more content you have that is relevant and engaging, the better chance you have of retaining the interest of that customer.

2. It helps you drive SEO. Search Engine Optimisation is a crucial part of any online presence. The more you give digitally, the better your reward will be in terms of search rankings. Content plays a huge part in this, as it gives you something to utilise on your social media accounts, which in turn increases visitors to your website and the chances that more people will talk and link back to your website (if they like the content). When search engines like Google see this popularity, they judge you as relevant and highly useful, increasing your exposure further with a higher search result ranking.

3. It builds your reputation. If a customer sees your brand popping up on multiple channels they visit, and that the content you are sharing is valuable to them, your reputation with them will grow. You will be seen as a leader in your industry, an expert whose opinion should be listened to.

4. Quality content lasts forever. Having a library of diverse, well-executed content that is connected, coherent and ultimately highly knowledgeable will be something that never loses value. It enables you to draw on key facts and topics again with minimal effort when the time is right. Content marketing may be time consuming in the short term, but once the hard work is complete, you have materials to draw on forever.

Top tip: Stuck for ideas on what to talk about? Why not think about some of the most common questions your customers ask. Then, create content answering those questions! The next time someone asks a question you’ve already answered before, you can direct them to a piece of content on your website. We do this a lot on Skyline Social and most of the articles on our blog are from questions our customers (and potential customers) have already asked.

Choose Educational Content for your business

There is a fine balance between educating and patronising your customers. You should always offer something of value; advice on how to improve and tips on what to expect next from your industry. By placing yourself as a leader in your chosen market, you can invite potential customers to join you. You can motivate, inspire and excite your audience, giving them confidence in your abilities, and the help and guidance they need to improve. If you can master the tone, and offer true, quantifiable value, then you will reap the rewards.

So what is stopping you? Don’t delay. Start your content marketing campaign today and invest in a more successful online presence for your business.

Why now is the right time to start creating educational content for your business was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As a business owner, you will most likely know that there are three critical things you must do to ensure the success of your business:

• Generate more leads
• Convert more leads into customers
• Build a stronger brand to attract and retain more customers

The great news is you can do all three (and a lot more) if you implement an effective social media strategy for your business.

Notice I use the word “effective”.

Most social media strategies for small businesses fail because they are not effective. There is no consistency, no plan, and ultimately no results.

The essence of a successful social media campaign (measurable by the results you get) can be achieved by completing just five steps:

Step 1: Plan (goal setting, building the foundation, etc)
Step 2: Create (choose the right social media channels to join)
Step 3: Grow (build a targeted audience of people interested in your business)
Step 4: Attract (generate leads)
Step 5: Convert (convert those leads into customers)

We will cover each of these steps in more detail as you go through this guide.

Before you start: Why is a social media strategy important?

I know the word “strategy” is often overused, but it still holds great importance when utilising social media. To be successful, you need to have an effective plan in place. How many times have you travelled in the past without any kind of research, forward planning or at least Google Maps at hand? Not many I would guess. You need to know where you’re going and you need the right tools to get you there.

So, how do you create an effective social media strategy for your small business?

Like any plan, you need to prepare well before you start. You need to know where you are going, what you need to do to get there and then, finally, take actions that turn your plan into a reality.

Step 1: Plan and set your goals

Take a notepad (electronic notepad is also fine) and jot down the answers to these three fundamental questions:

What is your goal?

Before you start a social media campaign it’s important you know the end-goal of what you hope to achieve. Do you want to get more leads, build a stronger brand, provide more value, win more customers, or is it a combination of all these?

It’s important you also set some realistic expectations, so that the goal you create is achievable.

Who is your ideal customer?

To help you do this, think about your existing customers. What traits do they have in common?

Here are some things you could think about:

(Note: Not all may be applicable. Just choose the ones right for you and ignore the rest.)

Age:
Gender:
Location:
Income:
Education:
Marital status:
Job Titles:
Industry:
Size of business:
Age of business:
Services business provides:

Now that you know a bit more about your ideal customer, you can begin to dig a bit deeper.

You need to get into the mind of your ideal customer and think about the type of books/magazines/publications they read, what websites do they visit, what events do they attend, what tools/apps do they use, what authority figures/influencers do they follow on social media and finally what’s specifically unique about your target audience?

The more information you can find about your target audience; the better you will be able to find, target and get your prospects to engage with you on social media.

What do you have of immense value that you can offer your ideal customers?

To really boost your social media campaign and achieve extraordinary results, you need have a mind-blowing offer.

The better your offer, the better results you will get.

A good offer on social media usually has two primary components:

One of the best ways to create an offer is by creating a high-quality and highly valuable piece of content for your target audience to consume for free.

This content could be in the form of a blog post, a webinar, an event, a video or any other form of content that someone can consume for free and receive value from.

You want to make your potential customers think “Wow” and want to share it with colleagues, friends and their network.

So if you haven’t yet started to create content for your business, now is the time to start!

By the way, If you are not sure how to create content for your business then I’m working on a course to explain exactly how to use content and social media together. Click here to be notified as soon as it’s ready.

Step 2: Create

Once you have established your goals, your target audience and your offer, you can then start to join and be active on the social media channels where your target audience are most likely to be found.

Here’s a quick run-down of the most popular social media channels currently running, to give you an idea of where you should focus your time, energy and attention.

Twitter

Twitter is an excellent channel to begin with as it’s an open social media network. What this means is that unlike Facebook or Instagram, most people on Twitter have public accounts.

This makes it very easy and cost-effective to find and connect with people in your target audience, and to start generating leads.

We will show you how a bit later in this guide.

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook is the world’s largest social media channel and has some of the best targeting options available. I put Facebook and Instagram together, because Instagram is owned by Facebook.

So, if you master how to advertise effectively on Facebook, you can also do the same for Instagram, as they use the same advertising platform.

It’s worth mentioning that to get the best results on Facebook and Instagram, you will need to invest in paid advertising. Organic reach just won’t get you as far.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has been dubbed as ‘Facebook for Businesses’, and was acquired by Microsoft in June 2016 for a staggering $26.2 billion, making it the largest acquisition in its history.

With Microsoft investing that much money into LinkedIn you can expect some radical changes (and hopefully improvements) in the way LinkedIn continues to work moving forward.

Right now, although people are not as active on LinkedIn as they are compared to other social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc), there are a LOT of people who do have LinkedIn accounts.

This makes LinkedIn an excellent research tool for those working in b2b markets.

You can pretty much find anyone using LinkedIn’s advanced search feature and search for people based on job titles, company size, industry, keywords in their profile, company name and much more.

Top tip: LinkedIn is more powerful when used from a personal profile rather than a company profile. A LinkedIn company profile is quite limited in what it can do in comparison to a personal account which can research people, message people and share content.

What about the other social media channels?

The above social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) are four of the biggest social media networks that we recommend businesses use to get started.

Why?

They have a large amount of active users, and chances are high that you can find those in your target audience relatively easily on most, if not all, of the above.

Once you’ve created a strong presence and you’re feeling a bit more confident, you can then start exploring some of the other social media channels and expand your reach even more.

Top Tip: Remember, you don’t have to be on ALL social media channels straight away. This is a common mistake that some businesses make. They join as many social media channels as possible and then don’t have the money, time or resources to be active on any of them. It’s best to focus on a few and get really good at them FIRST, then add more as you go along.

Here are a few additional social media channels you can add to your business when the time is right:

Snapchat

Snapchat and Instagram are the two fastest growing social media channels right now. One of the great things about Snapchat is that the engagement rate is extremely high. This means that when someone follows you on Snapchat and you post a Snapchat story, there’s a very high chance your audience will see it.

Snapchat also works very differently to other social media channels. It’s more about what’s happening right now and showing people what it’s like behind the scenes in your company.

Think of it as documenting your company and your team’s day to day life.

See also: Is it time for your business to join Snapchat?

Medium

Medium.com, created by one of the Twitter co-founders, is an excellent social media channel for sharing your own written content.

The type of business related content that works really well for Medium are articles about business advice, leadership, productivity, marketing, self-improvement, lifestyle and so on.

Medium also connects really well with Twitter. So, if you have built up a strong presence and audience on Twitter, you can pass that onto Medium.

Google Plus

Google+ isn’t one of the most popular social media channels right now. Most of the people that use Google+ are “techy’s” or people that have a profile but never really use it.

That being said, it is owned by Google, and is has also been said that an account can sometimes help influence your search engine rankings.

Right now though, I recommend you don’t bother too much with Google+. It’s totally okay to have a presence there (like we do) but I recommend you focus your time, money and resources on some of the other social media channels as you will get much better results.

Top tip: If you have a local business (such as a shop or an office where people can walk-in) I do recommend you sign up for a Local Business Listing with Google. This is slightly different to having a Google+ brand page on its own. A Local business listing can help you rank higher on Google for local search results and increase your online presence.

YouTube

If you create any video content then you MUST be using YouTube.

Why?

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (after Google of course) and by having videos on YouTube you can get a lot of traffic to your videos and back to your website and landing pages.

Check out our YouTube channel for examples of videos you can create for your business.

Top tip: When setting up your social media channels don’t just set them up for your “business”. Think about setting up social media channels for yourself (as the leader and human voice of your company) and your team (your brand ambassadors). This will help you build an even stronger social media presence.

Step 3 and 4: Grow and Attract

Once you’ve set up and optimised your social media channels, you don’t want to simply leave them there collecting dust.

It’s time to build a targeted audience of people interested in you and your business.

I have put steps 3 and 4 together because as you grow your audience on social media, at the same time, you also want to be generating leads.

How can you do that?

It depends on what social media channels you have a presence on, as each works in a slightly different way.

In general though, you need to do two things:

• Get your business in front of the right people
• Have something valuable to share with people

Let’s dig a bit deeper and see how you can do that on some of the main social media channels.

Twitter

One of the best ways to build a targeted audience on Twitter, and to generate leads, is by following people in your target audience and starting conversations with them.

Because of the way Twitter works, it’s one of the easiest and most cost-effective social media channels to start growing a presence on.

In fact, you can generate leads and grow a targeted audience on Twitter without spending a penny on advertising.

All you need to do is invest your time, and you can invest as much or as little of that as you like.

Of course, the more time you do invest, the faster your audience will grow, and the more leads you can generate.

Facebook & Instagram

To get real results on Facebook and Instagram, you need to use paid advertising.

Facebook advertising (although I mention “Facebook”, the principles also apply to Instagram in the same way) can be a huge asset for your business. There are hundreds of things I could cover with Facebook advertising and the possibilities are almost endless.

So, here are the main principles to keep in mind:

First, you need to choose your Facebook Campaign Goal

What is it you want to do? Do you want to build brand awareness, generate leads, get more people to read your content, or something else?

The first step to a successful Facebook campaign is choosing your goal. Facebook’s algorithm automatically matches your Facebook ads to the people who are most likely to engage and respond to the goal you’ve set. Facebook is pretty good at this too.

I can’t stress this enough: make sure you choose the correct Facebook campaign goal! If you choose the wrong goal, then everything else you do for your Facebook campaign will not get the results you want.

Second, you need to choose your correct targeting audience

If you’ve completed step one correctly, then choosing the correct target audience should be much easier. Facebook allow you to filter through and find people based on all kinds of demographics and interests. Really try and drill down to whoever you think will be most likely to buy from your business.

Top tip: You can also retarget people who have visited certain pages on your website or are on your email list, creating ‘look-alike’ audiences. These can also be a very effective way of targeting people.

Third, create a Facebook advert that provides VALUE

It’s so important that you provide value to the people you are targeting on Facebook. People are tired of being bombarded by adverts that simply sell. Instead, create an advert that *gasp* doesn’t look like an advert! Believe it or not, some of the best Facebook ads do not look like advertising.

This is especially true if you are reaching out to a cold audience (where people have never heard about you before). Provide value to people first, build up trust, give them something in exchange for their email address and then sell when the time is right.

And finally, test and optimise

The final step to a successful Facebook campaign is to create multiple adverts. Try varying text, changing images and even promoting different offers. If what you do at first doesn’t work, try something else. When you find something that does work, then increase your budget and scale up for even better results!

Top tip: When using Facebook/Instagram ads for the first time, we recommend you start with a small budget at first (around £500 / $500 per month is a good place to start) and then increase and scale up accordingly as you start to get stronger results.

LinkedIn

One of the best things you can do to build a targeted audience on LinkedIn is to connect with everyone you meet in real-life and through your online dealings.

This means you should connect to your suppliers, strategic partners, clients, potential clients and anyone you meet in the business world.

Why is this important?

When you connect to someone they get a chance to have a look at your LinkedIn profile, your recommendations and learn a bit more about you and your company.

More importantly, whenever you post social media updates, the people you are connected to on LinkedIn can see it.

This is a great way to be remembered, as well as build trust with those you meet and speak to each day.

See also: The best things in life are free! How sharing free content boosts your business.

Step 5: Convert

Now that you’ve generated some leads, followers and likes, you can sit back, relax, and watch the money roll in, right? Well, not yet (but you are close!)

People who become a part of your target audience on social media, and who provide you with their name and email address for your marketing database (also known as leads) are, in most cases, still not ready to buy.

The reason they not ready yet is because they have only heard about you for the first time.

You need to build up trust.

If you keep building trust, by providing more and more value to people, it will reach a tipping point where either a) they become a client/customer or b) refer you to a client/customer.

How to take prospects from a lead to sale

It’s all about providing value, building trust and being at the forefront of your prospects mind when they need your service, or know someone who does.

Here are the top three ways you can do that:

1) Share high-quality content on social media

A great way to provide value and stay in people’s minds is by sharing content that your target audience would find interesting through social media updates.

See also: how to post social media updates your customers will love!

Another thing you can do on social media is to engage with your potential clients. A “like” on one of their posts, a positive comment on something they’ve shared, and so on, can go a long way towards building a relationship with your potential clients. It will definitely help you stick out and be remembered.

If you really want to go the extra mile and engage with people, you could also try video commenting. For example, I sometimes send a video message to people on Twitter who follow, share or engage with our content.

Ashley Davis on Twitter

@keswanger thanks for sharing my content from @SkylineSocialCo 🙌🏻 https://t.co/3zqI4G11A1

And as you can see, people will remember it:

So, if you’re feeling brave, try sending out video messages to key people. It’s not something they will easily forget.

2) Create your own high-quality content

Although it’s great to share other people’s content via your social media channels, if you create your own content and share that too, you will get even better results.

Why?

Content marketing is simply a modern-form of educational based marketing, and there’s no end to the benefits that this can provide for your business.

Here are a few:

• You can position yourself as an expert and leader in your industry
• You can answer people’s questions about what it is you do and how it works
• You can educate people as to the benefits of what you do
• You can get higher visibility on search engines
• You can improve your conversion rate when speaking to prospects
• You build a stronger brand
• You build a better relationship with your existing and new customers.

It’s hard to ignore the results that can be achieved by creating your own content. It is just such a cost-effective way of marketing your business.

At first, it may feel a slow process to see tangible results from your content marketing. The more you do it though, the more growth you will see. Within a year or two you could very easily quadruple your investment from content marketing.

So make sure you start creating content for your business (if you haven’t already) that provides as much value as possible, and keep adding to it a regular basis.

3) Follow up with people through email marketing

Email marketing, although more traditional in relative terms, is still far from dead. It’s an incredibly powerful way to continue to build relationships with people, if you use it correctly.

The way we recommend you use email marketing is to again provide value to people — not just sell to them through generic company newsletters.

One way to provide value is by sharing with them content that gives valuable, engaging information.

There are a number of tools (for example Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Infusionsoft, etc) that you can use to send out emails to people, and start to grow your email database. We aren’t committed to one provider in particular, as long as you use something!

(As a side note — we do use ConvertKit for Skyline Social)

Your email database is going to be the lifeblood of your business. It’s what will win you more customers over the many months and years to come.

An email list is a bit like having a plant. If you keep the plant well watered and trimmed, it will grow and prosper. If you neglect the plant it will die. There’s no in-between. Like a well-watered plant, you need to make sure your email list is looked after, cared for and continues to grow.

As you build more of a relationship with those on your email list, people will eventually buy from you when the time is right, or refer you to those that buy.

See also: “From shares to shakes: closing leads through social media and the power of nurturing”.

Be consistent and reap the rewards

The final part of the social media puzzle is to be consistent.

Marketing is a relentless process and not something you can just do once.

This is especially true of social media and content marketing. Don’t expect to dabble with Facebook adverts, post a couple of updates on Twitter, add a few connections on LinkedIn and then get instant results.

It takes time to build up a presence on social media, and it’s something that you need to do consistently over a long period of time for best results.

After a decent period of time (usually between 6 to 12 months) you can expect some great results, including:

• A consistent stream of high-quality new leads for your business
• A stronger brand that attracts new customers to you
• A higher lifetime customer value (meaning your customers stay with you for longer and buy from you again and again)

Remember: social media and content marketing have a compounding effect on your business. Which means the longer you do this for, the better results you can get.

Imagine the impact this could have on your business in one year, two years or even three years from now?

So stick with it, put in the hard work and reap the rewards.

Don’t want to do it all yourself?

At Skyline Social, we love working with modern-thinking businesses who want to grow using social media. We can help you as much or as little as you like. To learn more book a free consultation with us today.

Originally published at www.skylinesocial.com on January 12, 2017.

The ultimate small business guide to creating a social media strategy that works! was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Writing unique, engaging content for your business can be difficult. You need to source the right topic, research it thoroughly and then spend time editing and redrafting until it reads exactly how you need it to. It is time consuming and to some feels more like a chore than a valuable task.

Content can become a treasured asset though, and, if written well and with feeling, can represent your company and your values in a way that nothing else can.

Unfortunately, creating great content is only part of the journey.

Once you have spent the time and effort fine tuning your blog, webinar or video, it is important that the right people can interact with it and that you are sharing it in places they will find it.

It is the same in all media.

A film will have little impact if it is shared on the big screen with no advertising in advance, and a new app is unlikely to cause a stir if it can’t be found on the Apple or Google Store. It is so important that the right people are consuming your content, to make all that time and effort worthwhile.

First, provide content that ‘stands out’

2016 has been a huge year for social media.

It has helped a billionaire TV celebrity to take the White House, aided in the revival of video through Facebook Live and Instagram, and given us unparalleled access to some of the truly memorable, and often miserable, events that have occurred throughout last year.

Across the globe, increasingly more people are embracing social platforms for aims that range from political, to personal, to business.

See also: Why small business owners are embracing social media

So, with the world connected in ways that have never before been seen, how do we, as business owners, create a distinction and cut through the noise?

At Skyline Social, we believe you can achieve this in the following ways:

Creating valuable content and putting it in the hands and minds of people who need it (your potential clients).

If what you share on social media (i.e. interesting content) is something that is incredibly valuable to people in your target audience — they will notice it!

Actually, they won’t just notice it — they will read, watch, listen and share it, then look forward to your next piece!

That’s why people subscribe to YouTube channels, why they follow you on Twitter and why they like your company page on Facebook. It’s because they like what you have to say and they want to hear more.

This is exactly how you ‘cut through the noise’ on social media and reach the hearts and minds of potential clients that are interested in what you have to say.

But remember two very important things:

• You can’t do this with bad quality content
• You can’t just sit there and expect people to “find” your content

You need to actively go out there and get your high-quality content in front of the right people (your potential clients) and you need to do this on a consistent basis.

Share your content with the ‘right’ people

The biggest failure that people have when trying to utilise and master social media is that their targeting is wrong, or that they have no targeting at all.

Some will simply share their content indiscriminately across cyber space in the hope that someone, anyone, will find and enjoy it.
Considering the billions of users that social media has across the planet, and the tens of millions of updates and links that are shared every day, this nonchalant approach is unlikely to strike home.

So you need to actively promote your content to people in your target audience.

To do that, you need to first answer these three very important questions:

1. What is your ultimate goal?

What exactly are you looking to achieve? Do you need to increase the number of followers you have, or the views your content receives? Are you ultimately looking for more sales as a direct result of your campaign, or more leads for your email database?

Once we know the goal, we can create the plan.

2. Who is your ideal customer?

This should be simple. Everyone knows who their customers are, right? You’d be surprised.

Often, it is only after we sit down with a client that they can truly isolate the characteristics of the people they want to reach. Age, gender, interests, location, job description; there are so many ways to determine who would be best suited. With this information gathered, we can then begin to find them.

3. Where do your potential customers ‘hang out’?

Social media is a diverse universe. Although some audiences overlap between platforms, chances are your audience prefer one or two social media channels to others.

Make sure that wherever you spend your time, money and resources, it’s on a social media channel that those in your target audience are using.

Want to learn more?

Next week we will be sharing with you “The ultimate small business guide to creating a social media strategy that works”.

Keep an eye out for it by following me on Medium.

How to get your content seen by the right people was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How do you get people interested in your product or service?

So, what is the best way to get people engaged? What is the best way to resonate your ideas with consumers, and motivate them to buy?

Give them things for free, of course.

In a world of faceless corporations and untrustworthy money-grabbing schemes, a little non-profit generosity makes for a refreshing change.

It doesn’t have to be an actualised product, maybe it’s just a list of helpful hints or interesting articles that are relevant to what you’re selling. However, whatever you share, make sure it’s the best you can give. Sharing something flat or uninteresting will go down like the present from your great-aunt at Christmas, so generate a positive reception with exciting content, aimed to genuinely help or interest your consumer.

The key is to create a buzz, and have a group of people who are excited and appreciative of the gift you have chosen to give them.

How should you start?

Always think about your target audience and what they will be interested in. For example, if you’re in the IT industry looking to target businesses with IT needs, consider sharing your views on topics such as “The best VOIP services for your business”, “How to keep your data secure”, “How a good IT system can save your business money” and so on.

If you’re in the world of coaching maybe share your favourite ’30-day challenge’. Doing so will give a much more 3D representation of who you are as a personable business.

2. ‘Share’ it. On every social media outlet.

Social media is a relatively recent platform perfect for marketing. Easy, economical access to a global audience, without the irritating repetitiveness of television advertising. As long as what you share is valuable, interesting and engaging to your target audience, you will get a great response.

3. Share it some more!

There are plenty of useful sites out there which provide a space to showcase a variety of useful articles and videos.

For example, Medium.com is a helpful website from which writers can share their posts under several different categories and within different fields and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

Don’t just share your content on your website but share it in as many places as you can.

Don’t worry

The concern can often be that giving things away for free will mean that there is no direction to a target audience. It is thrown into open air with no specification of where it will land, and all the quality content is tossed away to people who are never going to spend any money on it.

But that’s okay! Let the freeloaders do your marketing for you. They will become your fans, and pass on their good reviews to people they know have a need or interest in your product. Having recommendations from a trusted source is a marketer’s dream, the faceless is replaced by the faithful. It’s a personalised sell, to an audience who will appreciate it.

It’s about creating a good impression of your business. Building a stronger brand.

Positioning yourself as an expert and a leader in your industry.

In a world where the price of potentially life-saving drugs is increased to $750 in the interest of financial gain, faith in the corporate world is quickly diminishing.

Let your business be the silver lining, the breath of fresh air, the comforting reassurance that it’s not all doom and gloom. Create the good character business where even if the product on offer is out of budget, anyone can benefit from the positivity and generosity you exude.

The best things in life are free! How sharing free content boosts your business was originally published in Skyline Social on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.